Ps 119
Revelation
(Psalm 119)
Jason Procopio
Most of you know that our dear friend Edouard Nelson, pastor l’Église des Ternes, passed away very suddenly on August 14th. It’s been a very difficult weekend, trying to come to grips with what happened. I still can’t quite assimilate the reality that he’s gone, and I won’t see him again, get a coffee with him, hear that barreling laugh or hear his voice singing louder than every other voice in the room.
Obviously I’ve been thinking about Edouard a lot since Friday. It’s hard not to only think about my friend, this guy I’m missing terribly. But it would be a crime to only think about that. Edouard would have been incensed at the idea that all my time might be spent thinking about him, and not thinking about what he loved.
What motivated Edouard was the gospel of Jesus Christ. He had a passion to see Christ proclaimed—in Paris first, Paris was his city—and beyond, to the rest of France and to the end of the earth. And he had a very clear conviction of how this should happen. He believed—and he impressed this belief on all of us who knew him—that God sends his gospel forward through the faithful preaching of the Word of God.
Edouard loved the Bible. He loved everything about the Bible. He was one of the most vibrant people I’ve ever known—he had more energy when completely exhausted than I usually do when I’m wide awake—but his intensity increased by staggering leaps when he spoke about the Bible.
The Bible—the Word of God, the Law of God, the precepts of God—is the subject of our text today. Today’s text is Psalm 119.
Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible: 170 verses long. Reading this one psalm is like reading 5 or 6 “normal” chapters. It’s actually longer than many books of the Bible, in their entirety.
But this psalm is an absolute masterpiece of biblical literature, and we need to know it as intimately as we can. Now, there are some things we learn through explanation. But other things have to be experienced if we are to truly know them.
Psalm 119 isn’t a psalm you read; it’s a psalm that you experience. It is so long, and so cyclical, that by the end of the psalm you feel as if you’ve lived in it. You simply cannot do justice to such a text by merely hitting the highlights.
So I’m going to talk less than the psalmist this morning. We’re going to read the entire psalm (yes, we are!). We won’t do it all at once. We’ll read some of it, I’ll come and explain some things, then we’ll read some more, then I’ll come back, and so on. (I’ve recruited some volunteers to help us read the text). And I’ll be completely transparent in saying that given the incredibly difficult week this has been, I’m leaning heavily on Derek Kidner’s excellent commentary on the Psalms.
So that’s the plan. And in order to help make this a bit easier, though, I’m going to ask you to do a couple things while we read.
First of all, when we go to read the text, stand up. We often do this in church to show the reading of God’s Word the respect it deserves; and on top of that, it’ll help wake you up a little. (We’ll be standing for about five minutes at a time, so if you have an injury, or some other reason that keeps you from standing so long, feel free to sit down. But if you’re young and able-bodied, the effort will pay off.)
Secondly, read along with us. I’ll put the text up on the screen: read aloud, along with your brothers and sisters.
Thirdly, at the end of each reading I’m going to leave the text open on the screen for about thirty seconds. Take those moments in silence to reflect on what you’ve just read, to write down your main takeaways.
Introduction to Psalm 119
• Form
• Like I said, Psalm 119 is a masterpiece. Particularly, it is a masterpiece of Hebrew poetry.
• The psalm contains twenty-two stanzas, or groups, of eight verses each.
• Now here’s where it starts getting interesting. Psalm 119 is what’s called an acrostic poem.
• Of the twenty-two stanzas, each stanza represents a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
• Stanza 1 is Aleph (or A); Stanza 2 is Beth (or B), and so on.
• And this just blows my mind: within each stanza, the first word of each verse begins with the same letter in the Hebrew alphabet.
• This severely limits the author’s ability to control his argument, to sustain his flow of thought over the length of the psalm.
• And yet somehow, he does it—the psalm does indeed have one main subject, one main theme which runs through its length.
• And that theme is: the Word of God, God’s covenant instruction to his people, is a perfect guide for the life of God’s people.
• It is so fitting that the longest (and one of the most technically impressive) chapters in the Bible focuses on a celebration of God’s Word.
• Theme
• What we see, again and again in this psalm, is the effect that God’s Word has on the life of the psalmist. What the Word does to him, how it changes him, how it moves him to emotion and to action.
• Now keeping those ideas in mind, let’s begin with the first 8 stanzas (the first 64 verses). Please stand with me and read along.
(If you don’t have a Bible, you can read Psalm 119 here.)
The Qualities of God’s Word
• (I’m going to be skipping around a good bit, because the stanzas aren’t necessarily arranged thematically. So if I talk about a verse we haven’t seen yet, don’t worry, we’ll get there.)
• One of the most surprising aspects of the God of the Bible is that he is a God who speaks.
• As we saw last week in Psalm 115, the main difference between God and the idols of the nations is that God speaks: he is alive; they are not. He is vocal; they are not. He listens and responds to his people.
• God isn’t inspired by anyone else; he doesn’t piggy-back off of other gods or other prophets to communicate with his people.
• He speaks to them directly through his Word.
• But even though that may be surprising, it doesn’t mean it’s good.
• We all know people who are able to talk for hours without ever saying anything of substance. They talk and talk and talk and it all amounts to a bunch of noise.
• What surprises even more than the fact of God speaking is that his speech has character.
• His words bring delight (v. 14-16).
• Now keep in mind: at the time this psalm was written, very little of the Bible we have in our hands today actually existed. For the most part, they had the first five books of the Bible—arguably, some of the hardest ones. Those are the writings in which the psalmist delights.
• How many of us, when we read the Bible, actually delight in it?
• We can agree, I think, that some parts of the Bible are easier to take than others.
• But we insist on a regular reading of the whole Bible because the cumulative effect of all of those readings, over time, help us to see why we delight in what God tells us there.
• This delight which we find in God’s Word bring up even deeper reactions, deeper emotions. It fills us with longing and love for God himself (v. 20, 40, 103, 131).
• The more we grow in our love and knowledge of God, the more we are filled with the knowledge of just how awesome he is. And as we see God himself as awesome, we feel that same reverence and awe when we read his Word.
• We tremble at his perfect judgments (v. 120).
• We take comfort in his righteousness (v. 7, 138, 144).
• We rest in the fact that we can count on him (v. 43, 142, 151).
• We find our strength in the knowledge that his righteous character is eternal (v. 89-91).
• And we get excited at the knowledge that his Word is an inexhaustible wealth of knowledge for his people (v. 18, 27, 96).
• God’s Word is not static. It is fixed—it doesn’t change, and we do not add to it—but it is anything but lifeless. God’s Word is living and active (Hebrews 4.12).
• Let’s keep reading. Stand with me as we read the next seven stanzas (v. 65-120).
The Benefits of God’s Word
• Everything we saw before about the qualities of God’s Word stand, whether or not it ever acts upon anyone. Those are things that are true of God’s word, even if it stands unread on a shelf.
• But obviously, God gave his Word that it might be heard, spoken, read, shared. And as we read and speak and share and preach his Word, we are struck by a multitude of unexpected benefits in ourselves.
• The first benefit seems to be a bit of a contradiction, and that is freedom (v. 45).
• This sounds strange to say, because again, the psalmist is speaking here about a law—about, among other things, a set of rules that God gave his people.
• We necessarily see rules as restrictive—laws tell us what we can’t do. In the minds of many modern people, rules limit freedom: they prohibit us from being completely free.
• But anyone who thinks about it for even a minute knows that’s not true. Rules give us the framework we need to live well. Without rules, there is anarchy.
• And in the case of Psalm 119, we’re not talking about human commandments; we’re talking about commandments which came from God, who is infinitely trustworthy.
• Because he created us, he knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows which rules will be beneficial to us. He commands those things which are good for us, and restricts those things which are harmful to us.
• So his rules, as opposed to restricting our freedom, actually enhance it: they give us the framework we need to live well, to benefit from the life he has given us.
• The second benefit we see is light, or understanding (v. 105, 130).
• In other words, through God’s Word, he teaches us how to see.
• Everyone has had the experience of trying to navigate a room in total darkness. Inevitably, you stub your toe or bang your knee.
• Just a little light—even the light coming off of your cell phone screen—is enough to show you where to walk in order to not hurt yourself.
• He teaches us how to see the world—and he’s the best teacher, because he created the world.
• He teaches us how to see ourselves—and he’s the best teacher, because he created us.
• He teaches us how to see our activities and interactions and jobs and leisure.
• And he does it in order to lead us to the third benefit: life (v. 144, 37).
• God doesn’t create us for mindless and joyless existence. He gives us life that we might have life.
• But the only life we were created for is life in him. As Saint Augustine said, God made us for himself, and our hearts are restless until they are found in him.
• And we cannot find God on our own. We can’t stumble our way to him. We can’t find him without a guide.
• His Word is our guide, which leads us to life.
• One last benefit (among many we could mention): stability (v. 23).
• Derek Kidner comments: “Scripture fills and occupies a potentially distracted mind. This is not escapism but attention to the best advice (‘thy testimonies are my counsellors’, 24) and to the main issue, which is the will and promises of God, more real and more relevant than the plots of men.”
• We see the psalmist doing this, meditating on God’s will and promises in v. 89-92.
• When he meditates on God’s Word, on his goodness and promises, he is stabilized. The things which frightened him before frighten him less, for he sees them as God sees them. The things which were essential for him are less essential, for he sees that only God is essential. The goals he had set himself are less important, because God reorients his goals to where they should be.
• We see God’s benefits all around us, when we get to know his Word.
• But how do we square these benefits with the fact of the broken world in which we live?
• That’s what we’ll see last.
• But first, stand with me: let’s read the last seven stanzas (v. 121-170).
God’s Word in a Broken World
• Over the course of the psalm, the psalmist is constantly coming to grips with the fact that while he is unequivocally entranced with God’s law, he is isolated, persecuted and mocked (v. 69, 85).
• He is constantly humbled by the wickedness of the world in which he finds himself, for he finds himself tempted by that same wickedness (v. 36).
• And there—in v. 36—we see the fundamental difficulty of loving God’s Word in a broken world: even when we are convinced of God’s truth, we are constantly pulled in other directions.
• Which is why this psalm is so wonderful and so necessary.
• This psalm—and I hope you can feel the weight of this now, after having read it—beats into us our need for God to reveal himself to us.
• God gives us his Word, but naturally we are insensitive to its beauties.
• So he sent his Son, the ultimate revaltion of himself, to live our life and die our death, to reconcile us to God. But naturally we don’t believe Jesus Christ actually came from God.
• So he sends his Spirit, to awaken our hearts and open our eyes, to give us faith.
• And with new eyes, the eyes of faith, we look at Christ, and we see him for the Savior he is. We look at God’s Word, and we see not a mere book, but a light to our path.
• The Holy Spirit illuminates God’s Word for us—illuminates this psalm for us—and teaches us the beauty of God’s revelation to us.
• But it doesn’t happen all at once. If this psalm teaches us anything, it’s that this kind of love for God’s Word takes time. It takes work. It takes persistent meditation, aided and illuminated by the Holy Spirit.
• So brothers and sisters, persevere in the Word. Meditate on its beauties, and don’t be discouraged if you are not as engaged as you want to be. Grow into your love for his Word.
• Pray that God would incline your heart to his testimonies (v. 36). Pray that he might open your eyes, to behold wondrous things out of his Word (v. 18). And trust that he will.
• Learn his Word, and love his Word. Store up his Word in your heart, that you might not sin against him (v. 11).
